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I broke the infant Christ with my head on Christmas morning.
We had only just finished unwrapping presents when I bent to pick something up off the floor and smacked my head into the shelf displaying a two foot plaster Jesus which toppled– bounced off the back of my coconut and crashed to the floor.
I hit my head a lot for some reason and every blow leaves a mark on the pate of a bald dude but this was one of those wounds you can kind of stick your finger in and know that it's a good one. I stood there momentarily like an earthquake survivor with blood running down the side of my face then went upstairs for triage. You have your traditions, we have ours.
I taped my head back together and came back downstairs to find the icon had been swept up and place neatly in the box leftover from my sons inflatable Wii race car. There was Jesus' head plaintively staring back at me from a pile of chards with the armature jutting from his neck leaving me to wonder at what this might portend for the coming year.
I used to be in a theatre company called the European Theatre Company.
We closed up shop about six years ago and my basement became something of a vault for the remains and the statue had somehow survived it. I had only recently bothered to display it, taking time to carefully clean it up in time for the holidays and placing it with due consideration on an ornate shelf salvaged from another production. This formerly neglected relic shone impressively from a perch in my living room and now it's gone but for the head and hands. It had survived unnoticed for years only to perish once carefully displayed. It's likely to be little more than a broken statue but I can't help but think there is a lesson in there somewhere.
I'm with TUTA now and I like saying that a lot. This is a company full of thoughtful, talented people. I love the idea that we will produce theatre on our time, in our way.
We go headlong into the New Year with a celebration at the TUTA space and into rehearsal for a remount of Brecht's The Wedding at our prow. But beyond that it's open water. (You'll be relieved to find not one more nautical reference in this post.)
With TUTA and more to the point myself, it's a season of "starting again" – of finding a new, possibly better way of doing old things and that feels like a better way right now because I've recently learned that it might be best to leave the relic in the basement.
What: A TUTA New Year's Eve Bash
When: December 31st, 2010, doors open at 9pm
Where: Fulton Street Warehouse, 2032 W. Fulton, easily accessible via Damen and Grand buses
Why: A portion of the proceeds will benefit TUTA, a theatre company known for marrying cultures, time periods and artistic expressions of all kinds.
RSVP: Facebook Event at http://www.facebook.